Each week, I’ll pull together a range of items that have attracted my attention. I hope you will find the variety of topics covered both interesting and enlightening. Please remember to read the comments, as the information (and the links) contained in them often put the main article into context.. If you follow a site that is, maybe, a bit off the beaten track and think it would be of interest, please contact me and I’ll take a look._____________________________________________

Germany To Open Six More Coal Power Stations In 2013

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Paul Homewood

Germany’s dash for coal continues apace. Following on the opening of two new coal power stations in 2012, six more are due to open this year, with a combined capacity of 5800MW, enough to provide 7% of Germany’s electricity needs.

RWE’s new lignite power station opened in Neurath in 2012

Including the plants coming on stream this year, there are 12 coal fired stations due to open by 2020. Along with the two opened last year in Neurath and Boxberg, they will be capable of supplying 19% of the country’s power.

In a new report entitled “Why was the start to spring 2013 so cold?,” the chief of the UK MET Office now admits that decreased Arctic sea ice or “Arctic amplification” was not responsible for the unusually cold spring 2013 in Europe, finding “little evidence from the comparison between the cold spring of 1962 and this year that the Arctic has been a contributory factor in terms of the hypothesis” of “an increased probability of extreme weather events that result from prolonged conditions, such as drought, flooding, cold spells, and heat waves.”

According to the report, “Figure 13 shows the midtroposphere temperature anomalies for 1962 and 2013; over the Arctic they are almost identical and reflect the negative NAO pattern. It is hard to argue that Arctic amplification had changed the equator to pole temperature in a systematic way to affect the circulation this spring.”

The (un)sustainability of all climate all the time

Posted on April 21, 2013 by The View From Here

A few days ago, I was taking stock of the many framings of climate. I was also wondering about the various and sundry footprints with which enviro-activists are so concerned. Here, thanks to wordle, is an illustration of what I found:

I very quickly realized that I had forgotten “climate disruption”, so please imagine it included in the above; and I’ve no doubt that there are others I might have missed. But what I had never heard of until yesterday was “climate insecurity”.

There’s a chap by the name of John Ashton who recently delivered [h/t Tom Nelson] a rally the troops speech to the somewhat self-beleaguered of late, U.K. Meteorological Office (fondly known in climate concerned circles as the “Met Office”).

Climate insecurity (whatever this is supposed to mean) is obviously very much on Ashton’s mind, as he mentioned it no less than three times during the course of his 4,986-word peroration, which he had entitled, “Climate Change and Politics: Surviving the Collision”. Oh, and his total “climate” count was no less than 42, and included such memorable turns of phrase as “climate-exposed business sectors” (perhaps he had the UNEP’s B4E in mind?) and “climate diplomacy”.

Australian conservatives going Labor lite — pandering to the “green vote” or just confused?

Posted on April 23, 2013 by JoNovaWhat were they thinking?

Tony Abbott has a plan to try to convince China and the US to sign up for the “global climate change deal.” As if the world’s number one and two economies, with a population of 1.6 billion combined, will be waiting for instructions. And as if the global climate needed “a deal”.

Hey but we do have 22 million people. squeak. squeak.

To make matters worse, Greg Hunt — the opposition spokesman for the environment — said a Coalition Government might not wipe out the emissions reductions target but… wait, they might lift the target instead. Thus taking something useless, expensive and ineffective against a problem-that-doesn’t-exist and making it moreso.

It’s a mistake every which way. The Liberal Party could play them at their own green game and beat them, just by applying common sense.

Instead its appeasing the politically correct namecallers (who wouldn’t vote for them anyway), and the price they pay is to look weak, irrational and lacking in conviction.

“Friends of Science” – Some Compelling Science on “Climate Change”

One of the websites listed in the ‘Links’ on the sidebar under “Climate Change”.

For those readers who are able to understand a layman’s level of science, there is enough evidence on this referenced site to show, without fear of being wrong, that the AGW science is NOT SETTLED.

To those readers who are influenced by the general media, government propaganda and even some scientists who tell us that increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 are a serious threat to our future, and therefore believe that the science is settled and that 97%, (or even a majority), of scientists support the theory and therefore the responding adopted actions – here is a website worth following.

Even if you are not then convinced that the public is being taken for an expensive ride, hopefully it will at least arouse a tiny level of awakening to the possibility of your “climate change” beliefs being wrong. Please open your mind to this possibility.